Tabasco Hot Sauce

Tabasco is arguably the most well-known hot sauce in America. It is found in most diners and restaurants as well as many kitchens across the nation. When I saw Tabasco seedlings for sale at a local greenhouse, I knew I had to buy them to try to make my own sauce.

The plants produce an incredible amount of tiny ornamental peppers, which is beautiful to look at, but also means you need to pick a lot to make the mash needed. Pick the peppers often to encourage more to grow or buy several plants when your wife isn't looking and sneak them into the garden. "Honest honey, I thought it said tomato."

The Tabasco Sauce you buy in the stores or steal from restaurants uses fermented tabasco peppers, so I wanted to do the same thing. However, their sauce is fermented in wooden barrels for three years under a salt blanket before being processed. I don't have that patience, or barrels, so I decided to try a different approach. I smoked my salt and added extra.

I also learned that fermented foods are excellent as probiotics, but only if you don't pasteurize them and kill all those nice little bacteria. Therefore, I avoid boiling or canning mine. It reduces the shelf-life to maybe a year or less, but if you like hot sauce, that's not a problem.

I'm not going to give a course on fermenting in this blog, so if you decide to make this recipe, do ten minutes of research online and you should be fine. As I picked ripe Tabasco Peppers, I removed the stem, chopped them roughly, weighed them, and added 4-5% smoked Real Salt. It's more salt than I usually use but I thought it would replicate the salt blanket Tabasco uses. I'll describe an easy process for this mash in the recipe, but if anything smells or looks funny, please don't try it without doing some research. In most cases it's Kahm Yeast (a white layer on top of the mash) which is harmless but should be removed.

Since the peppers ripened at their own leisurely pace over the summer, I began the mash and when I got more peppers, I continued to add them to the mix. Once all the peppers were processed, I let the entire jar continue to ferment for another month.

Tabasco Mash Ferment

Air is the enemy of a successful ferment. I recommend you do a little research on fermenting before trying this yourself. It's easier than it sounds and won't take long. The rewards are worth it.

Real Salt (I used Redmond's. Avoid salt with additives because it will hinder ferment)

Hickory wood chips

A smoker ( I have a small one for drinks or cheese, but you can make a smoker on a grill)

Tabasco Peppers

Mason Jar

Fermenting Weight or plastic bag filled with water

Fermenting Air lock or a commitment to burp your ferment

I took about a 1/2 cup of Real Salt and smoked it with Hickory Chips

For every 10 oz of chopped Tabasco Peppers, add .5 oz of smoked salt (You can go with .3 oz of salt if you want to)

Pack the mixture into the jar, pressing to remove air pockets. You should have a thin layer of liquid above the mash. Using a weight or water-filled plastic bag, keep the mash under this liquid. If you don't have an airlock lid, burp the jar by unscrewing the lid a little each day to release gases. Failure to do this could result in leaks or even an exploding jar.

I continued to add more mash until my jar was filled to within 1 inch of the top. Then I let it ferment for one more month. When you are ready to make the hot sauce, carefully remove any Kahm Yeast from the surface before proceeding.

Todd's Tabasco Sauce

The Tabasco Sauce you buy in stores uses your standard white vinegar. The better the vinegar you use for this sauce, the better your sauce will taste. You can experiment by placing a dab of your mash onto a spoon and adding a few drops of the vinegar. For this recipe I used a good White Wine vinegar with the mother to make it extra probiotic. I made a second batch with natural Rice Vinegar which produced a sweeter, more complex sauce.

10 oz fermented smoked tabasco mash

4 TBS white wine vinegar (you can add more to taste. I added an extra 1 TBS to mine)

Blend the ingredients together to liquify. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve, pressing on the solids with a wooden spoon. SAVE THE SOLIDS. Bottle the liquid, adjust the salt and vinegar to taste, and enjoy!

Put the solids (seeds and skin) on a baking sheet and dehydrate them. When dry, grind them to a powder and you now have a probiotic spice blend to sprinkle on pizza, pasta or eggs. Add some other spices to add complexity.